Egon Schiele behind an Easel with His Painting Autumn Tree in Stirred Air (Winter Tree), 1912, 1912

At the studio of Hans Ungar (1880–1942 deported to Izbica) in Neulengbach, the 22-year-old Egon Schiele (1890–1918) posed twice for photographs, each time with one of his paintings, both of which are well-known today: in the present photograph with his work Autumn Tree in Stirred Air and a second time with Autumn Sun I. Both works were created in 1912 in Neulengbach, where the artist had been living since August 1911. Schiele positioned the painting on a studio easel and stood behind it to the right, looking towards the left. The easel’s vertical wooden beam, on which the picture holders are fixed, is cropped by the upper edge of the photograph, thus dividing the shot in the upper part into two halves. This gives the impression of Schiele being seen from behind a window. Both canvases featured in the spring exhibition of the artists’ association Hagenbund in Vienna, which was shown from March to April 1912 at the Zedlitzhalle. The same year, they found high-profile first owners: The co-founder of the Wiener Werkstätte, Fritz Waerndorfer (1868–1939), bought Autumn Sun I, while the artist and collector Magda Mautner von Markhof (1881–1944) acquired Autumn Tree in Stirred Air in an effort to have a “complete representation of young Viennese art” in her collection.

KJ, 2024